CHAPTER XII
IT must a been close on to one o'clock when we got
below the island at last, and the raft did seem to
go mighty slow. If a boat was to come along we was
going to take to the canoe and break for the
Illinois shore; and it was well a boat didn't come,
for we hadn't ever thought to put the gun in the
canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything to eat. We was
in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many
things. It warn't good judgment to put everything on
the raft.
If the men went to the island I just expect they
found the camp fire I built, and watched it all
night for Jim to come. Anyways, they stayed away
from us, and if my building the fire never fooled
them it warn't no fault of mine. I played it as low
down on them as I could.
When the first streak of day began to show we tied
up to a towhead in a big bend on the Illinois side,
and hacked off cottonwood branches with the hatchet,
and covered up the raft with them so she looked like
there had been a cave-in in the bank there. A
tow-head is a sandbar that has cottonwoods on it as
thick as harrow-teeth.
We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy
timber on the Illinois side, and the channel was
down the Missouri shore at that place, so we warn't
afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there
all day,
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and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the
Missouri shore, and up-bound steamboats fight the
big river in the middle. I told Jim all about the
time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim said
she was a smart one, and if she was to start after
us herself she wouldn't set down and watch a camp
fire -- no, sir, she'd fetch a dog. Well, then, I
said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a
dog? Jim said he bet she did think of it by the time
the men was ready to start, and he believed they
must a gone up-town to get a dog and so they lost
all that time, or else we wouldn't be here on a
towhead sixteen or seventeen mile below the village
-- no, indeedy, we would be in that same old town
again. So I said I didn't care what was the reason
they didn't get us as long as they didn't.
When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our
heads out of the cottonwood thicket, and looked up
and down and across; nothing in sight; so Jim took
up some of the top planks of the raft and built a
snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and
rainy, and to keep the things dry. Jim made a floor
for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above
the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all
the traps was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right
in the middle of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt
about five or six inches deep with a frame around it
for to hold it to its place; this was to build a
fire on in sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam
would keep it from being seen. We made an extra
steering-oar, too, because one of the others might
get broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a
short forked stick to hang the old lantern on,
because we must
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always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat
coming down-stream, to keep from getting run over;
but we wouldn't have to light it for up-stream boats
unless we see we was in what they call a "crossing";
for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks
being still a little under water; so up-bound boats
didn't always run the channel, but hunted easy
water.
This second night we run between seven and eight
hours, with a current that was making over four mile
an hour. We catched fish and talked, and we took a
swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was
kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river,
laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we
didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't
often that we laughed -- only a little kind of a low
chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general
thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all --
that night, nor the next, nor the next.
Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on
black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of
lights; not a house could you see. The fifth night
we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world
lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was
twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I
never believed it till I see that wonderful spread
of lights at two o'clock that still night. There
warn't a sound there; everybody was asleep.
Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten
o'clock at some little village, and buy ten or
fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or other stuff
to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't
roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always
said, take a chicken when you get a chance,
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because if you don't want him yourself you can easy
find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever
forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the
chicken himself, but that is what he used to say,
anyway.
Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields
and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a
punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind.
Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things
if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but
the widow said it warn't anything but a soft name
for stealing, and no decent body would do it. Jim
said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap
was partly right; so the best way would be for us to
pick out two or three things from the list and say
we wouldn't borrow them any more -- then he reckoned
it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we
talked it over all one night, drifting along down
the river, trying to make up our minds whether to
drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the
mushmelons, or what. But towards daylight we got it
all settled satisfactory, and concluded to drop
crabapples and p'simmons. We warn't feeling just
right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I
was glad the way it come out, too, because
crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmons
wouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet.
We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too
early in the morning or didn't go to bed early
enough in the evening. Take it all round, we lived
pretty high.
The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm
after midnight, with a power of thunder and
lightning,
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and the rain poured down in a solid sheet. We stayed
in the wigwam and let the raft take care of itself.
When the lightning glared out we could see a big
straight river ahead, and high, rocky bluffs on both
sides. By and by says I, "Hel-lo, Jim, looky
yonder!" It was a steamboat that had killed herself
on a rock. We was drifting straight down for her.
The lightning showed her very distinct. She was
leaning over, with part of her upper deck above
water, and you could see every little chimbly-guy
clean and clear, and a chair by the big bell, with
an old slouch hat hanging on the back of it, when
the flashes come.
Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all
so mysterious-like, I felt just the way any other
boy would a felt when I see that wreck laying there
so mournful and lonesome in the middle of the river.
I wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a
little, and see what there was there. So I says:
"Le's land on her, Jim."
But Jim was dead against it at first. He says:
"I doan' want to go fool'n 'long er no wrack. We's
doin' blame' well, en we better let blame' well
alone, as de good book says. Like as not dey's a
watchman on dat wrack."
"Watchman your grandmother," I says; "there ain't
nothing to watch but the texas and the pilot-house;
and do you reckon anybody's going to resk his life
for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this,
when it's likely to break up and wash off down the
river any minute?" Jim couldn't say nothing to that,
so he didn't try. "And besides," I says, "we might
borrow something worth having out of the captain's
stateroom. Seegars, I bet you -- and cost five cents
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apiece, solid cash. Steamboat captains is always
rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and they don't
care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as
they want it. Stick a candle in your pocket; I can't
rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you
reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not
for pie, he wouldn't. He'd call it an adventure --
that's what he'd call it; and he'd land on that
wreck if it was his last act. And wouldn't he throw
style into it? -- wouldn't he spread himself, nor
nothing? Why, you'd think it was Christopher
C'lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come. I wish Tom Sawyer
was here."
Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we
mustn't talk any more than we could help, and then
talk mighty low. The lightning showed us the wreck
again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard
derrick, and made fast there.
The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down
the slope of it to labboard, in the dark, towards
the texas, feeling our way slow with our feet, and
spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it
was so dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty
soon we struck the forward end of the skylight, and
clumb on to it; and the next step fetched us in
front of the captain's door, which was open, and by
Jimminy, away down through the texas-hall we see a
light! and all in the same second we seem to hear
low voices in yonder!
Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick,
and told me to come along. I says, all right, and
was going to start for the raft; but just then I
heard a voice wail out and say:
"Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!"
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Another voice said, pretty loud:
"It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way
before. You always want more'n your share of the
truck, and you've always got it, too, because you've
swore 't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time
you've said it jest one time too many. You're the
meanest, treacherousest hound in this country."
By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just
a-biling with curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom
Sawyer wouldn't back out now, and so I won't either;
I'm a-going to see what's going on here. So I
dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage,
and crept aft in the dark till there warn't but one
stateroom betwixt me and the cross-hall of the
texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the
floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing
over him, and one of them had a dim lantern in his
hand, and the other one had a pistol. This one kept
pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor,
and saying:
"I'd like to! And I orter, too -- a mean skunk!"
The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, "Oh
please don't, Bill; I hain't ever goin' to tell."
And every time he said that the man with the lantern
would laugh and say:
"'Deed you ain't! You never said no truer thing 'n
that, you bet you." And once he said: "Hear him beg!
and yit if we hadn't got the best of him and tied
him he'd a killed us both. And what for? Jist for
noth'n. Jist because we stood on our rights --
that's what for. But I lay you ain't a-goin' to
threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put up that
pistol, Bill."
Bill says:
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"I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him
-- and didn't he kill old Hatfield jist the same way
-- and don't he deserve it?"
"But I don't want him killed, and I've got my
reasons for it."
"Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll
never forgit you long's I live!" says the man on the
floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up
his lantern on a nail and started towards where I
was there in the dark, and motioned Bill to come. I
crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but
the boat slanted so that I couldn't make very good
time; so to keep from getting run over and catched I
crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. The man
came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard
got to my stateroom, he says:
"Here -- come in here."
And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they
got in I was up in the upper berth, cornered, and
sorry I come. Then they stood there, with their
hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I
couldn't see them, but I could tell where they was
by the whisky they'd been having. I was glad I
didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made much
difference anyway, because most of the time they
couldn't a treed me because I didn't breathe. I was
too scared. And, besides, a body couldn't breathe
and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest.
Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:
"He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to
give both our shares to him now it wouldn't make no
difference after the row and the way we've served
him.
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Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's evidence;
now you hear me. I'm for putting him out of his
troubles."
"So'm I," says Packard, very quiet.
"Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't.
Well, then, that's all right. Le's go and do it."
"Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit. You
listen to me. Shooting's good, but there's quieter
ways if the thing's got to be done. But what I say
is this: it ain't good sense to go court'n around
after a halter if you can git at what you're up to
in some way that's jist as good and at the same time
don't bring you into no resks. Ain't that so?"
"You bet it is. But how you goin' to manage it this
time?"
"Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and
gather up whatever pickins we've overlooked in the
state-rooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck.
Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be
more'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and
washes off down the river. See? He'll be drownded,
and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own
self. I reckon that's a considerble sight better 'n
killin' of him. I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as
long as you can git aroun' it; it ain't good sense,
it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?"
"Yes, I reck'n you are. But s'pose she don't break
up and wash off?"
"Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see,
can't we?"
"All right, then; come along."
So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat,
and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there;
but I said, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "Jim !"
and
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he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a
moan, and I says:
"Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and
moaning; there's a gang of murderers in yonder, and
if we don't hunt up their boat and set her drifting
down the river so these fellows can't get away from
the wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad
fix. But if we find their boat we can put all of 'em
in a bad fix -- for the sheriff 'll get 'em. Quick
-- hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the
stabboard. You start at the raft, and -- "
" Oh, my lordy, lordy! Raf'? Dey ain' no raf' no
mo'; she done broke loose en gone I -- en here we
is!"
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